


A (Not So) Empty Place

by ArcticLucie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, Outer Space, Stranded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23562223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcticLucie/pseuds/ArcticLucie
Summary: Just a day in the life of Mando and the child in which their ship breaks down, they almost die, and Papa Din worries for his foundling.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 62





	A (Not So) Empty Place

Space: a cold, dark, quiet, and empty place. Under normal circumstances, Din would rejoice in all of it, but as the cold began to seep deeper and deeper into the ship, he started to worry. Not for himself, but for the foundling in his care. Because silence on a ship signaled trouble, and in the vast expanse of space, that trouble often accompanied a death sentence. His ship might very well double as their tomb.

Irony had no place in his head, but dying of asphyxiation at the hands of the universe instead of the hands of an enemy lent itself to a certain kind of poetry. A dark, melancholy kind poetry, but no one would ever mistake him for a poet. He didn’t care so much about himself—he’d outrun death so many times he knew his luck would run out one day—but the child. They’d become a clan of two and that meant something now. It meant if he couldn’t get them out alive, he didn’t deserve to be a clan of one.

A gentle coo had him looking toward the makeshift bassinet. The little one had woken from his nap which meant Din had to prepare dinner. The mechanic had given him some tips on what to feed a youngling, but he didn’t expect the little womp rat to eat so much. He’d had to take on extra jobs on their last stop just to breakeven with the cost of food. At least he’d loaded up. If for some reason the kid outlived him, it wouldn’t starve.

He heard a thud as he made his way to the cargo hold. The little one had started to insist on getting out of his bassinet on his own and Din obliged. Soon he heard the sound of tiny feet padding toward him as he rustled through the crates containing their food supply.

“Good thing you’re not picky,” Din said, tossing the kid a half eaten box of some sort of protein concoction. It smelled like the inside of a tauntaun, but he liked it well enough, polishing off the box and then eating that too. Din sighed and scrounged around for something for himself before settling on a crate to eat.

He watched the child make his way over toward the bin of scrap metal and spare parts that Din had designated the “toy chest” for lack of a better descriptor. The little one picked out several square hunks of metal Din had scavenged a few stops back and arranged them in a neat little row. Then using his little hand trick, one by one, the blocks rose off the floor, some shaky as they trembled through the air, some steady as a rock. He stacked them on top of each other into a high tower before using his other hand to knock it down. A happy giggle almost had Din smiling, but he bit it back and watched while the child repeated the process a few more times until boredom set in.

Din decided to take one more whack at the engine to see if he could get some kind of power restored. The child took the opportunity to watch him now as he banged around looking for an impossible solution. He needed outside parts to get the ship up and running again, and without help, he knew they wouldn’t last much longer. His head had already started to ache from oxygen deprivation.

When he finally grew frustrated at the useless broken parts, he scooped up the foundling and headed toward his bunk. He tucked the kid in and made sure he had his necklace to gnaw on. It soothed the child in a way it always had for Din, minus buckets of slobber.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I hustled two stormtroopers out of their speeder bikes?” Din asked as he made himself comfortable beside his bed. The lightheadedness had him wary they’d last much longer, but he wanted the child to be as comfortable as possible till the end.

He only made it halfway through the story before he had to stop, his strength fading faster than he had anticipated. "Long story short, I shot 'em." He scooped his foundling from the bed and sat him in his lap, deciding they’d remain a clan of two right up until the end. “You deserved better than me, kid,” he whispered right before the languid darkness pulled him under.

//

“Rise and shine, Papa,” a voice sang to him as a loud thunk sounded beside him. 

His eyes opened and landed on the part he’d desperately needed. Then he turned his gaze upon their rescuer before releasing the gun he’d retrieved on instinct from a perfectly placed compartment. “Cara,” Din rasped, his body thankful to replenish its oxygen supply as the hand on his foundling reassured him they had both survived.

“I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?” Cara teased, reaching out a hand to help him up.

He smiled to himself, hugging the child a little closer to his chest. “Guess not.”

Space, still as cold, dark, and quiet as ever, but maybe not as empty as he always believed.


End file.
